70 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



They chose the Franconian prince, Conrad 11., who, on account of his 

 immense domains on the Saale, was surnamed the Salian. The Saxons 

 very reluctantly saw^ the crown pass to the Franconian line, and their 

 opposition placed Conrad in a difficult position from the very first. But he 

 grasped the political helm with a powerful hand ; kept the refractory 

 lords of the empire in proper subjection ; and thus bequeathed to his son 

 a dominion consolidated at home and respected abroad. 



Henry III., early designated to the succession by his father, began his 

 reign in 1039. Under his rule Germany eclipsed in grandeur and influence 

 all the other states of Christendom. Since the days of Charlemagne no 

 prince had governed with such ability and dignity. He died in 1056, and 

 was succeeded by his son, Henry lY. 



During the minority of Henry lY., who on the decease of his father was 

 only six years of age, the cares of the empire devolved on his mother, 

 Agnes. The German nobility, irritated at having a woman at the head of 

 the government, again distracted the empire with intestine feuds. They 

 persecuted every person whom the empress honored with her confidence, 

 and bitter factions began to prevail. One of the conspirators, Hanno, 

 archbishop of Cologne, seized prince Henry, and carried him to his palace, 

 where he was treated with great rigor and unkindness. Hanno himself 

 took possession of the regency. It was the fortune of Adalbert, bishop of 

 Bremen, to free Henry from his confinement, and to carry him off to the 

 Faxons. In this way two high ecclesiastical dignitaries, the one by a 

 system of selfish austerity, the other by indulgence and flatter}^, had 

 ruined the disposition of the youthful king, who, at the age of fifteen, 

 oppressed the Germans, and above all, the Saxons. The latter, as well as 

 the Thuringians, rebelled against his government, and, in conjunction with 

 other conspirators, set up a rival king first in the person of Budolph, the 

 Suabian, and, subsequently, in Hermann of Luxemburg. The Saxons 

 finally accused him to Pope Gregory YII. (Hildebrand). This pontiff had 

 long entertained a desire of fully divorcing the church from the influence of 

 the state, and of making the papal see the arbiter of kings and princes, 

 investing it with the highest power on earth. As a prudential measure he 

 therefore ordered all ecclesiastics to remain in celibacy, so as to have no 

 families dependent upon the temporal power, and thus weaken or 

 divide the influence and fortunes of the church. N^o priest was to 

 be responsible to temporal power. He also ordained that priests should 

 not receive investiture at the hands of laymen, and forbade the 

 acquisition of cures by purchase. All the kingdoms of Christendom were 

 to be papal fiefs, and without the consent of the holy see no prince, king, 

 or emperor, should be elected. Gregory was precisely the man to 

 prosecute these reforms, and though his preachers of celibacy were beaten 

 and killed by the people, though he was himself once deposed and cruelly 

 ill-treated in Rome, he nevertheless persevered, through strife and 

 bloodshed, until he brought the hierarchy to the pinnacle of power. 



Gregory was well disposed to listen to complaints against a king who 

 had once deposed him, and he immediately excommunicated Henry. 

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